Classification is a human invention… are tomatoes, cucumbers and zucchinis fruit or veggies? Non issue.
In science, they are all fruit, but an apple is a "false fruit".
In cuisine, they are vegetables.
Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
251–255 of 255 posts
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
> because it’s a free country and it really doesn’t make sense to try to control other people over something like that No one is trying to control you by defining what words mean. In fact, you're still fully free to call anything you like whatever you want. You risk being misunderstood in certain contexts or assumed to be ignorant in others, but no one will stop you. My guess is that what you personally call a planet…
A mention of “the planet Pluto” carries risk that you will be derailed by people who think they are very scientific but in fact are just excited to be able to correct someone. My language has become politicized. Either I go with the flow and surrender something about my own language, or I risk getting called out or misunderstood as being incorrect if I continue. It’s easier to let them think they corrected you than t…
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Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#253Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't have a dog in this fight, but the real rule appears to be "that's the way I learned it in school".
That sure does seem to be the only argument on the "keep Pluto around but nothing else" side, "I learned it this way and I'm done learning"
Why don't you like Eris?
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#254Earlier quoted context omitted.
No that would be an argument to return to the original definition of planets (highly visible celestial objects that migrate across the sky, i.e. the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn). If you believe in the "standard 9" you're just insisting on returning to a scientific definition of planets but one that is frozen on our scientific understanding from a few decades ago...
The argument is to not make any changes to what people call planets but to instead have taken the opportunity in 2006 to create a separate classification system. Use something vaguely Latin sounding like planitus or whatever.
Yes, but again, what people call planets was stable for over a thousand years before changing rapidly in the past few centuries (first with the Sun and Moon being removed during the Copernican revolution, then Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta being added before being removed when they discovered a bunch of other asteroids, then Neptune being added, and finally in the last century Pluto being added before being removed after they discovered a bunch of other dwarf planets).
If you don't like changes to what people call planets, you should be unrolling all the other changes that have also been made, and go back to the original definition that stood from ~200 BCE-1700 CE.
Re: Since it was stripped of planetary status, Pluto’s defenders have been fighting
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
As I understand it, one suggested "double planet" definition was that the barycenter would have to be outside both objects. Earth-Moon doesn't (quite) satisfy that condition, but for example, Pluto-Charon does.
The Earth-Moon system is certainly anomalous within our Solar System. There is no such equivalent among the three other rocky planets, and while there are large moons around the other planets, the planets themselves are far larger.
I assume you're not including Pluto-Charon here (presumably since Pluto is now demoted to "dwarf planet")? Their mass ratio is only about 8:1, which is far smaller than Earth-Moon, 81:1.